It's Moving Pretty Quickly (for me) - Jiffy Knit Sweater

I just started working on a new project: the 1940s Jiffy Raglan Sleeve Sweater from our shop. I was really happy to find that I could use yarn already in my stash: a wool/acrylic blend. I purchased the yarn about 15 years ago, back when we still had a Ben Franklin craft store in town. I bought the yarn and started a sweater vest for my husband. I thought he would look cute. He thought I was nuts! So the partially completed vest has been in storage since then. I purchased so much yarn that I can probably make two of these sweaters.

The sweater is knit from the top down. Once you hit the bottom of the sweater, the vast majority of your work is already completed and your project is almost ready to wear. That seems pretty fantastic to me. In the first pic, I have the sweater waiting on my circular needle cable while I work on the sleeve.

I used a modified traveling loop that I first found a few year ago on YouTube to work the sleeves of the sweater. Liat Gat has fantastic knitting videos that are really well done. This is the video that I used to get me going on the sleeves. I might break down and buy a 16" circular needle if I make the sweater again. I think it might go faster if I didn't have to fiddle with the cable on every single round.

I will be posting my progress on the sweater. It should go fairly quickly since it is the Jiffy Raglan Sweater.

Happy knitting!

Rayon Straw Hat - 1960s Hats & Purses Pattern Strikes Again

This is another hat from the 1960's Hats and Purses pattern. This is view C (the easy version).

What's terrific about this hat is that it was made using yarn from my stash. No yarns were purchased to make this hat. I was poking around in my boxes of yarn, trying to find yarn that I was willing to part with for my son's Project Linus contribution, and I found the spools of Rayon Straw Yarn. We had purchased the spools a couple of years ago, then I decided to abandon the project I was working on for some reason.

This is the Rayon Straw Yarn I used to make the hat.

Bernat 100% Rayon Straw Yarn from BagsandBows.com

Close-up of center crown.

The hat worked up really quickly into a form fitting hat.

I will be heading home to see my family, and will give the hat to Alison who will test the hat for comfort, durability and color-fastness. She can provide a full report on her findings once she completes her job as my crash-test dummy. I know she will be so excited to contribute a blog post. Yay sis!

Happy crocheting!